CUI:I'UKA, I,I~NClUA.lliY I~I!I'KRSIINI)\CI~N/ CUIJURE, LANGUAGE AND REPRESENTATION . lSSN 1697-7750 . VOL Iv \ 2007, pp. 241-251 KIIVIS'IX IOII IlS?UIlIOS CIII:I'LIKAI.I3S Iül! 1.A UNIVERSITAT JAUME I / CULTURAL STUDIES JOURNAL OF UNIVERSITAT JAUME I

French Influence on English Culture in the Second Part of the Seventeenth Century. Aphra Behn as a Creative Translator and a Mediator Between the Two Cultures

VIO1,IS'L"SA 1'ROYlMOVA UNIVICKSI'I'Y 01' SAINT PETERSBURG

A~~w'tEngland in the Restoration pcriod (1 660-1 688). It focuses on Aphra Behn as a mediator between French and Bnglish cultures by analysing how she negotiated the <>,gcnder and creative clcn~cntsin hcr translations from the French.

Keyword,~:English Restoration period, Aphra Behn, cultural transfer, translation, cult~lralmcdiation.

RI?SIIMHN:En este articulo se aplica el concepto de las transferencias horizontales y vcrticalcs al proceso de intercambio cultural entre Francia e Inglaterra durante el pcriodo dc la Rcstauraci6n inglesa, centrándose específicamente en la figura de la cscritora Aphra Behn como mediadora entre ambas culturas a través del tratamien- to de 10s elcmcntos creativos, culturales y de genero que la misma realizaba en sus traducciones del francb.

Pulrhms clai~e:Aphra Behn, transferencia cultural, traducción, período de la Resta~~raciói~inglesa, nlediaci6n cultural.

Analyzing the psocess of cultural exchange, it is reasonable to distinguish between hsrizontd and vertical cultural transfers. Horizontal cultural transfer irnplics spatial diffusion and occurs among people of the same social group. Vcrtjeal cultural transfer transgresses social borders (Roeck, 2007). In the present arliclc I shall discuss the problem of cultural transfer, which is inseparable from tbe problcm of cultural translation. 242 cLll:lUKt\, I,IJNOUAII', Y III?PRCSI~NIS\CI~N/ CULIURE, UNCUAGE AND REPRESENTATION lSSN 1697-7750 VOL IV \ 2007, pp 241-251

In thc second half of the seventeenth century we can find an obvious exarnple OT horizontal cultural transfer between France and England at the time of the Restoration (1660-1688). It is generally acknowledged that there was a profound influence of the French culture on the English Restoration culture due to the fact that the English king Charles I1 and his court had been refugees in France for ncarly 20 years, having adopted French tastes and French manners. Moreover, (rt11c ascc~~dancyof France was to be the dominant characteristic of late seventeenth- ccntury Europc; C.. .] it can be said that up to the 1680's France was the sole great power ia ELI~o~c>>(Jones, 1978: 95). So, there are at least two reasons for the crfraneophilizing>>of the Restoration culture: the personal acquaintance of English aristocraey with French culture during the Revolution and the Republic (thc 1650~)~and the political influence of France on English affairs in the Restoration period. Such clcar-cut explanation, however, operates only on the surface. A closer cxamination of the historical and artistic circumstances in that period shows that thcrc was a lime difference (a lag) between the outcomes of the French influence on English ast and literature, and the outcomes of the French political influence. My concerli is primarily with literature, but I will start by examining architecture and decorativc art in the first place. French trends in English architecture did not reveal themselves before 1675. Italian High Renaissance models (epitomized, to a large extent, in the works of thc famous liiigo Jones) gave way to French (and also Dutch) motives. Whinney and Millar (1 957: 204) consider that ciit is not possible to trace this evolution in a ncat progression of buildings, nor to find precise historical reasons for changes of stylc. [. . .] Strong baroque elements appear in architecture and decoration about 1680. I11 the latter they are, no doubt, due to the arrival of Antonio Vcrrio>>.'Howevcr, it is impossible to believe that this painter could modify Christopber Wren's concept of exterior design, even though at least three great P~nchpicces of arehitecture left their mark on English architecture: Versailles (I 661 -1674), thc Invalides (the 1670s), and the east front of the Louvre (begun i11 1668). While both French and Dutch, as well as Roman styles, are used during the sanlc years and often in the same buildings, icthe result is an architecture which is ncither Italian, French nor Dutch baroque, but a [. . .] mixture of the tl~rcccombined with elements borrowed from none, which are peculiarly Bnglish (Whinney and Millar, 1957: 204). French elements in the period between 1675 and 1690 are present in the works of Robert Hooke: the fagade of Bedlam Hospital in Moorfields (1676), Lord Conway" house at Ragby, and Montagu House in Bloomsbury (the first

I. Iltllian by origiti, enrolled i11 the Royal Academy in Paris. VIC)I.I?I"I'A 'TKOFIMQVA Aphra Behn as a Creative Translator and a Mediator 243 and thc last did not survive). In 1683 Christopher Wren started the construction of Winchester palace, which was never finished. Its plan is linked with Le Vau's Versaillcs showing Cbarles' 11 dependence on France in the late period of his reign. An cxcellent example of cultural transfer is Windsor castle (particularly its rcconstruction in the 1680s when a number of new elements were introduced), revealing that Charles I1 occasionally showed an interest in the Arts. Architccturally, as Whinney and Millar (1957: 209) point out, crthe most novel fcature o€ the castle was perhaps the entrance to the new royal apartments,,. Thcrc were two vestibules, the ceiling of the first one supported by two rows of Ionic columns, the walls behind them being decorated by niches which contained (Peter Lely, Dutch by origin, and Kneller): in fact, there was a strong opposition to French elements in painting in England, as wcll as to the French masters, who were invited by pro-French royal mistresses. To sum up, there is a disparity between the political and historical aspects of thc French influenee on English art and the process of cultural transfer linked with thc construction of Versailles and, to some degree, with the cancellation of thc Edict of Nantes, during the Restoration period. In literature the picture is sornewhat other. The strong influence of French literature on the English one is explicit from the second quarter of the century and is revealed in the numerous translations of pseudo-heroic romances: L'Astrée by Honore d7Urfe;the works of Gomberville; Cmad Qrus ttnd Clelie by Madeleine de Scudery. These long fantastical romances, whieh epitomized French aristocratic culture, influenced English prose fiction widcly. Even the most original English romances, like Partenissa and Aretina by Sir Georgc Mackenzie, were written using French romances as a pattern. 244 C!Lil,lUkA, I.l:NGLiAlc Y KBPKBS~NTACI~N/ CULIURE, LANGUAGE AND REPRESENTATION ISSN 1697-7750 VOL IV \ 2007, PP 241-251

As Gcrmninc de Stael (in Lefevere, 1992: 18) said, crif translations of poetry enrich literature, translations of plays could exert an even greater influence, for thc theatcr is truly literature's executive power>>.Severa1 important French plays had been translated into English before the Restoration: Corneille's Cid was presentecl before Charles I as early as 1637; and Andromede by the sarne author was translated in 1650. The Restoration gave a new impulse to French drama in English. Four pieces by Corneille were translated in the first decade of the Rcstoration (the 1660s): Horace and Pompée (1663), Heraclius (1664) and Nicolaccic (1 671), the first two crmade English>>by the important woman writer or thc scvcntecnth century, Katherine Philips. In the 1670s Racine's plays were translatcd into Bnglish, Andromaque by John Crowne in 1675, and Berenice (in thc English version Titus and Berenice) by the famous playwright Thomas Otway in 1677. There were also many adaptations of Molihe's cornedies, and thcir ial'lucnce is revealed even in such specifically English plays as The Country Wife (I 675) and The Plain Dealer (1677) by William Wycherly. French philossphical works were also translated into English in the second part of the scventeenth century, like Pascal's Provinciales (1657) and Montaigne" Essais, the latter translated by the poet Charles Cotton in 1685. In prosc, thc most prominent piece of translation is Rabelais's Gargantua and P(zntngrue1, carried out by Thomas Urquhart in 1653. Thomas Urquhart also proposcd in his Logopandecteison (1653) a universal language, already showing thc cos~nopolitanapproach - a characteristic feature of the future Restoration pcriod. If the populr~rityof the long prose romances before the Restoration gave impulse to the Baroque in English literature, the widespread circulation of Corncillck and Racine" plays led to a formation of English Classicism (or Ncoclassicism). However, English Classicism in literature differed significantly from thc Frc11ch one. For one thing, English writers did not limit themselves so strictly to thc unities (of time, place and action), and defended tragicomedy as a genre specifically English, on the whole not being so rigid as its French equivalent. English Classicism in literature, thus, is the result of cultural transfer and the rcccption oC the French culture in England. After 1675, though, the opposition to Frcnch litcracy n~odelsand the growth of the national spirit occurred (Van Hoof, 1993: 135-1 36), and English writers tried to make their works better than Frcnch (or even aneient) models. It is interesting to notice, on the other hand, d?at in architecture the French trends became more and more influential in the salme period. The process of r>English culture was not at all synehronic in literature and in the rest of the Arts. Whcn discussing the problem of cultural transfer, it is impossible to ignore ils agents, the mediators between cultures. Aphra Behn (1640-1689), the most important woman writer in seventeenth-century England, who as a translator did VI~I,I,'I.IA TROI~IIGIOVA A/~l/raRehrz a? n Creatlve Translator and a Medzator a grcat $cal to introduce new French books into the English realm, constituted a prominent cxample of such mediation. As such, she had a marginal position in thc English malc-dominated literary world of her time as a woman, a woman wriler, an English spy in Flanders and Holland, and a woman who visited Surinatn in the early 1660s. But this very subordinate position made Behn an cxeellent mcdiator between cultures: English and South American Indian (see hcr tiovel Qroorzslo), English and Dutch (revealed in her plays and the novel Love-Letters hetween a Nsbleman and His Sister), and also English and French. Thcrc is no relir~blcevidence that Behn visited France at all, but she might be pcrsonally acquainted with another mediator between English and French eulturcs, Saint-Evremond, a friend of the famous Ninon de Lenclos and the admirer of Hortense Mancini, cardinal Mazarini's niece, Charles' I1 mistress. Beha dcdicated the story c>to her (Todd, 2000: 393-394). Aphra Behn both accepted and rejected the idea of the central culture, which is gcncrally considcred the native culture (English culture in Behn's case). In her ctBssay on Translated Prose>>(1688), being a translator's preface to A Discovery qf New Worlds (Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes, 1686), she rnakcs an important statement: eAnd I do not say this so much, to condemn the Frcnch, as to praise our own Mother-tongue, for what we think a Deformity, they may tthink a Berfeetion, as the Negroes of Guinney think us as ugly, as we think thcm>>(Bchn, 1688: n.p.). Here, Behn acknowledges the relativity of one's own coaceptions about different cultures, the importance of every culture, whether English or Frcnch or African. This ability to view another culture from its own pcrspective tnakes Behn almost a modern figure in translation. Whcn diseussing Behn's activity as a translator from a cultural point of view, I will dcaw rny attcntion to three aspects: the <>,gender and creativity. As a basis for this discussion I will focus on the following Behn's translations from the Frcnch: A Discovery of New Worlds and The History of Oracles (both 1688) Srorn Fontcnclle, La Montre, or the Lover's Watch (1686) from Bonnecorse, and Rqflectioris on Morality, or Seneca Unmask'd (1685), an adaptation of La Roel~efoucauld'sMaximes. As Trofimova (2004) established, the source of Behn" HUi'storayqf Qmcles was the first French edition published without the namc of thc author. As it is stated on the last page of the book, it was registered in thc c>of Paris on the 31" August 1686 ancl the eontract between Fontenelle and his publisher was concluded on thc 1 0"' Bccember 1686. The proof that Behn did use this edition may be found i11 page 50: <>~(Fontenelle, 1686 b: 50). Aphra Behn was

2. Not al"illes dxsieu, but <~. 240 ('L I ItINh, I,I;N(;UAJh Y KEPKHSEN'PAC16N / CULTURE, LANGUAGE ANO REPRESENTATION ISSN 1697-7750 VOL IV \ 2007, pp 241-251

not nwarc oi thc apparent absurdity of the phrase and translated it literally: <(Behn, 1993: 192). Nor did the critics and editors of her works rccognize it. As for Aphra Behn's A Discovery of New Worlds, Trofimova (2004) found out that she used the 1686 edition of Entretiens sur la pluralité des Monci'es published in Amsterdam. It appeared without the name of the author, but on the title page it was stated that it was <>(Behn, 1688: n.p.). On the other hand, in the Parisian cdition of the same year there is a map of the solar system which would have hec11 repmduccd in the English translation, had that edition been used. In the 1557 cdition thcre are other variations in the body of the text and the sixth night is addcd. As for Bonnecorse's La Montre, Behn used the 1671 edition, whereas in t11c casc of Ida Rochefoucauld's Maxims, as Bernard Dhuicq (1994: 175-176) cstablisl~cd,shc translated from the 1675 fourth edition. Rcgnrding thc (>aspect in Behn's translations, I draw attention to the inclusion of English realities instead of French ones in some of these works. Werc Bchn tries to fulfil the translator's task of providing a balance between the c(the whole complex of concepts, ideologies, persons and objccts belonging to a particular culture) acceptable to the author of the original, and tliat othcr wniverse of discourse>>which is acceptable and familiar to the trsnslator a~~dher audience (Lefevere, 1992: 35). In The History of Oracles Behn (1993: 243) substitutes <>.The lhel is that at that vcry time the new edition of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (1 487) had just appeared, and Behn most probably knew about this publication and included it in her translation of Histoire des Oracles to make the latter up- to-datc. In hcr translation of Entretiens Behn (1993: 147) introduces the English journsl Philosophicnl Transactions in replacement for the French Journal des S$nvcrnfs. This substitution also shows Behn's awareness of the science of her timc. The gender aspcct - belonging not to the horizontal, but to the vertical cultural transfer - is probably one of the least studied, though very important in Belin's translations. The early translateresses understood that the transrnission of significant literary texts was an essential, not an accessory, cultural task.

Tfimslation as CU activity inferior to <>literary work was considered ccí'ernale~),so women translators were not considered such a threat to literature as worncn writcrs were. As such, there were severa1 women translators in IXcnaissancc England, among them Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Sidney, countess ol' Pcmbrokc. 111 the seventeenth century women such as the aforementioned Katherinc Philips and Aphra Behn translated a greater variety of texts than had V lOl,e'r'l A I IEOI;I MOVA Aplim Neht? NA n Creative Translator and a Medzator 247 been dons previously, though predominantly from contemporary European languagcs (Simon, 1996: 52; Baker, 1998: 340). Behn shows her awareness of gender in her icEssay on Translated Prose>>, whcrc shc dcelared that Entretiens drew her attention because of the figure of the marquise, a woman who discussed philosophical and scientific matters: <>included in the text: the firsl one to replace <> in the French original (Behn, 1993: 121, 137). By doing this, Aphra Behn stresses the point that a woman is as much a human being as a man, posing herself as a real predecessor of ferninism. The crcative aspect in Behn's translations is linked both to the <

ICcrtain pcople] think translation is not creative. That is surely an immense mistakc. [. . .I A good translator is like a sculptor who tries to recreate the work of a painler, or like a painter, who tries to recreate the work of a sculptor [.. .] Good translations keep the spirit without moving away from the letter. They are free and noble imitations, that turn the familiar into something new. (in Lefevere, 1992: 13)

This is exactly what Behn does in her free translation of Bonnecorse's La Monrre, a bct admitted by the authors of the comrnendatory verses, Charles Cotton and Nahum Tate. Aphra Behn translates La Montre rather freely using both prosc and verse, especially in the first part of the work, where she makes cxte~~siveadditions of her own, thus transforming a nice, but rather dry Bonnecorsc piece, into a much more interesting work. Not only does the text 248 ((11 I IIRA, I,I%NGIJAJI, Y RI:PK~~SBN~ACI~N/ CULIUR& LANGUAGE AND REPRESENTATTON ISSN 1697-7750 VOL IV \ 2007, PP 241-251

conlain lnany fine cxamples of Behn's poetry, but it also presents a rather interesting fcmalc character (Iris); while a number of important insertions reveal Behn's position on divcrse matters (Dhuicq, 1990: 84). For instance, she changes the tonc of ((Twclve B'Clock>>,when the heroine Iris advises her lover Damon to go lo rhe temple. The original extract is very rigid, proposing the lover to prefer Iris lo all things, but to prefer God to Iris. In Behn's version, though, it finishes with the a~nbiguouswords rand only heaven must rival me>>(Behn, 1905: 219). Behn also rcfcrs lcss to God's power and His presence in people's souls, and more to lhc bcauties i11 rhe church and other earthly things. This substitution confirms her ratl~crskcptical attitude to religion. Behn radically changes the meaning of the passage on love and glory in c0ne BTlock. Impossibility to Sleep,). While in Bonnecorse's original love is llot ari enemy to glory, Behn disagrees with the French author and insists that <>(Behn, 1905: 252); though she finishes the passage in accordancc with Bonnecorse: rrwhen one has a worthy object of one's flame, glory accompanics love too~(Behn, 1905: 254). Nevertheless, Behn insists on 111c supcriority of peaceful life to military activities. Yet, what has passed unnoticed to scholars, cven to the editor of the Cornplete Works, Janet Todd, is Behn's inscrtion in Bonneeorse's text of several of La Rochefoucauld's maxims. These arc lnaxirns on lovc which Behn had translated earlier in her ReJections on Momlity (Trofirnova, 2004: 105-106). Bolh gendcr and creative aspects of Behn's translation can be found in the transformation of the main heroine, Iris. Her character differs from that in Nonneeorse% work, showing traits that could have belonged to Behn herself, as for instance, the following portrait not appearing in Bonnecorse:

You will find mc sitting alone in my cabinet (for I arn one that do not love to go to bcd carly) and will find me very uneasy and pensive, pleased with none of those things tl~atso wcll entertain others. I shun all conversation, as far as civility will allow, and find no satisfaction like being alone, where my sou1 may, without inlcrruption, converse with Damon. I sigh, and sometimes you will see my cheeks wet with lcars, that insensibly glide down at a thousand thoughts that present thcinsclvcs soft aad afflicting. (Behn, 1905: 252)

Iris nditates on writing, on the meaning of the words (Behn, 1905: 214- 5). She criticizes hypocrisy and coquettes, and this sharp criticism adds a lot Bchn" translation (Behn, 1905: 220-221, 226-227). At the end of the c> (Bcl~n,1697: 23). Undoubtedly, these words may be applied to Behn herself, the vlo1,tl'rm 'I'I~~I:IM~VAAphrtr Behn os a Creative Translator and a Mediator first professional wsman writer in England, and they also coincide with the eriticism of women's habits of dressing that she had expressed in A Discovery of New WorIds. <>and creative aspects in Behn's translation of La Montre appear in thc tast pages of the first part of the work. In The Lover's Watch, we can find one of Bchn" finest cxamples regarding the insertion of English realities into the Frcnch text: a reflection upon Windsor, incidentally one of the finest results of cultural transfer in the 1680s.

I am satisfied you pass your time well now at Windsor, for you adore that place; and it is uot, indeed, without great Reason; for it is most certainly now rendered the most glorious palace in the Christian world. And had our late gracious sovereign, of blessed memory, had no other miracles and wonders of his life and reign to have itmmortaliscd his Fame (of which there shall remain a thousand to posterity) this noble siructure alone, this building (almost divine) would have eternised the great nnme of glorious Charles I1 till the world moulder again to its old confusion, its first chaos. And the paintings of the famous Vario [Verrio], and noble carvings of the inimitable Gibon [Gibbons], shall never die, but remain to tell succeeding ages, that all arts and Icarning wcre not confined to ancient Rome and Greece, but that England, too, esuld boast its mightiest Share. Nor is the inside of this magnificent Structure, immortdised with so many eternal images of the illustrious Charles and Ct-itliarine, more to be admired than the wondrous Prospects without. The stupendous hcight, on which the famous pile is built, renders the fields, and flowery meads bclsw, the woods, the thickets, and the winding streams, the most delightful object that ever nature produced. Beyond all these, and far below, in an inviting vale, the venerable eollege, an old, but noble building, raises itself, in the midst of all the beauties of nature, high-grown trees, fruitful plains, purling rivulets, and spacious gardcns, adorned with all variety of sweets, that can delight the senses. (Behn, 1905: 26.5)

Bchn shsws a very good understanding of the artistic value of Windsor, both intuitively md intellectually; especially the latter when she mentions Verrio and Gibbo~~s,two very important agents in the process of cultural transfer in the Arts. Anothcr example of <>and creative translation can be found in Belin% Rcflections on Morality. There, Behn rearranges maxims, changing some and adding her own ones. She inserts her own examples taken from the English rcalities of hcr time in the last maxim <>:

Cato and Brutus ehose an Illustrous Death, and dy'd bravely. So did El. [Lord Bssexl - nay, I have seen a Lackey dance upon the Scaffold, which he ascended to be brokcn on a Wheel, and Vratz dy'd as well as L. - R. [Lord Russell] herein you rnay S66 tho the quality and motives be different, yet that they may produce the salme effects. (Behn, 3 993: 68-69) 250 CUl:VUl

Bchn's allusions are to contemporary criminals who were executed just before the publication of her translation, doing what she had done in The History c!J1 Bmcles - she tries to write Reflections into the modern English realities. All the three aspects of Behn's translations - <>:

It is Modish to Ape the French in every thing: Therefore, we not only naturalize thcir Words, but Words they steal from other Languages. I wish in this and severa1 other things, we had a little more of the Italian and Spanish Humour, and did not chop ai~dchange our Language, as we do our Cloths, at the Pleasure of every French Taylor. (Bchn, 3488: n.p.)

Works Cited

BAKICR,M. (ed.) (1998): Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies, London, Routledge. Berr~,A. (1688): ccTranslator's Preface>>in BEHN,A. (1688): A Discovery of New Worlds. Fmm the French, London, William Canning. n.p. - (I 697): Tlie Lady 's Looking-Glass, To Dress Herself by: Or, The Whole Art yf Chamzirzg, London, S. Briscoe. - (I 905): Tl7e Novels with an Introduction by E. A. Baker, London, Routledge. - (I 993): Sencca Uuzmask'd and Other Prose Translations, vol. 4, TO,J. (ed.) (3 993): The Worlcs qf Aphra Behn, 7 vol., London, Pickering and Chatto. BONNI~CORSE,B. DE (1671): La Montre, Paris, Claude Barbin. Dr4vrcy, B. (1990): ccAphra Behn: Théorie et pratique de la traduction au XVIIkmc sibcle>>,Franco-British Studies. Journal of the British Institute in Paris, 18: 75-98. - (1 994):

Rs~crc,B. (2007): <>in ROECK, B; H. ROODENBURG(eds.) (2007): Forging European Zdentities, 1400 - 1700, vol. 4, Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 1-25. SIMON,S. (1896): Gender in Translation: Cultural Zdentity and the Politics of Tmnsmission, London, Routledge. TODI),J. (2000): The Secret Lije of Aphra Behn, London, Pandora. THOFLMOVA,V. (2004): crThe Echo of La Rochefoucauld's "Maxims" in Aphra Bchn's Prose Fiction>>,Views & Voices, 1: 99-107. VANHOO& H. (1991): Histoire de la Traduction en Occident: France, Grande- Rretaguze, Allemagne, Russie, Pays-Bas, Paris, Duculot. WRINNEY,M.; O. MILLAR(1957): English Art 1625-1714, Oxford, Clarendon Prcss.